A plan by the United States, Japan, India and Australia to collaboratively invest in port infrastructure in Fiji is a step toward challenging China’s hegemony over supply chains in the region, while simultaneously signaling to Pacific island nations that the four regional powers can offer them a better deal than Beijing, experts told Radio Free Asia.
The plan was unveiled earlier this week in New Delhi, after a meeting of foreign ministers from member countries of the Quadrilateral security dialogue alliance, or Quad.
Fiji was likely chosen because of its strategic location as the convergence point of many global shipping lanes, Gregory Brown, director of the Alliance Futures Initiative, a Washington-based think tank, told RFA.
“Fiji sits at the crossroads of the South Pacific and is the natural logistics hub for anything moving between Australia, New Zealand and the wider islands,” Brown said. “If you’re going to build a port that serves the entire Pacific, you build it where the shipping lanes converge, and that’s Suva, the fulcrum of the region. »
According to a fact sheet released by the U.S. Department of State, Tuesday’s meeting focused on maritime and transnational security, economic prosperity and security, critical and emerging technologies, and humanitarian assistance and emergency responses.
“Following the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership conference in India in October 2025, the Quad is committed to identifying critical port projects it can support to increase trade and economic prosperity by increasing port infrastructure and capacity on key Indo-Pacific corridors,” the factsheet said.
“As such, we are proud to announce that the Quad countries will work with the Government of Fiji to advance port infrastructure and associated activities in the country. »
The port project would constitute a major Western infrastructure project in a region that has seen increasing Chinese investment in recent years, as Beijing and the West vie for geopolitical influence.
Avoiding “debt traps”
Through the port project, the Quad hopes to send a message to Fiji and other Pacific island countries that there are alternatives to working closely with China.
In recent years, Beijing has aggressively invested in infrastructure in the Pacific islands as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.
The plan has been criticized as a “debt trap”: partner countries borrow heavily to finance bridges, roads or seaports, but when they struggle to repay, China gains influence and control.
Fiji owes about $110 million to Chinese state banks, or about 6.5 percent of its external debt, according to its finance ministry. Although this figure is relatively low compared to other creditors like Japan (9.7%), the World Bank (36.3%) and the Asian Development Bank (38.7%), the nature of loans from other major creditors is “highly concessional” and has longer repayment windows than Chinese loans.
“China’s model in the Pacific is loans,” Brown said. “Debt becomes a strategic instrument.”
Brown noted that the Quad’s plan is to finance the Fiji port project primarily through grants, thereby allowing Suva to avoid falling into a debt trap.
“China lends, the Quad gives,” he said. “For a country the size of Fiji, that’s quite the math.”
China also provides subsidies to its international partners, but only at a fraction of that of the United States. According to a March 2025 report from the Washington-based Brookings Institution, Chinese aid spending was about 14.6% of that of the United States between 2013 and 2018, and subsidies totaled 47.3% of that aid.
The report says the subsidies are “traditional foreign aid projects in the Western sense” and says there is a “misperception” that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is aid.
The prospect of a partnership with Beijing for these projects nevertheless remains attractive. Brown recalled how Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka toured the ports during a visit to China in 2024 and discussed potential partnerships for port upgrades.
“The Quad did not choose Fiji at random,” he said. “This pitch is a direct counteroffer.”
He said Fiji is the largest and most visible island nation in the Pacific and if the project is successful it will send a message that will “resonate throughout the region”.
“I think the goal is to show the Pacific island countries that there is a better deal than the one in Beijing,” Brown said.
First steps
If the Quad port project in Fiji proves successful, the climate could be right for port upgrades in other parts of the region. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a press conference after the Quad meeting that the Fiji project would “serve as a model for other projects in the future”.
Port infrastructure in the Pacific is essential, Cleo Paskal, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies Research Institute, told RFA.
“Choosing Fiji is a relatively easy first step – a location that is relatively high profile and fits Australian and Indian priorities,” she said. “Ideally, the next choice would be infrastructure located in locations that make an even stronger statement and make a difference, such as Bina Port in the Solomon Islands. »
She also noted that Pacific island countries that still recognize Taiwan – the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu – would be ripe for cooperation with the Quad, as Chinese infrastructure projects in these countries would be problematic from Beijing’s perspective.
“I think this is a pilot project. If it works, we’ll replicate it,” Brown said. “The real question is whether the Quad can deliver this project on time and on budget.”
Although the port has been announced, construction will not begin overnight as Fiji has not yet agreed to the project, Fijian Foreign Minister Sakiasi Ditoka told Indian media outlet The Hindu on Wednesday. Ditoka confirmed that Fiji was in talks over port infrastructure with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, a bilateral US foreign aid agency.
The U.S. State Department announced in March that MCC had signed an agreement with Fiji for a $12 million grant “to support design and feasibility studies,” which Ditoka said focused on Fiji’s ports and regulatory environment for business.
Asked Tuesday about the port and an initiative on maritime surveillance discussed at the Quad meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning reiterated China’s position on the Quad that cooperation between the countries should not target a third party and that China opposes “the formation of exclusive groupings or engaging in bloc confrontation.”
Beyond port and maritime monitoring, other plans unveiled at the meeting included a minerals investment framework, an initiative on energy security and a promise to ensure countries in the region are connected via undersea cables “by 2026”.
Brown believes these commitments indicate a “qualitative shift,” moving from talking about Pacific strategy to announcing “concrete results.”
“The Pacific is where great power competition will be decided, and the Quad has just recognized that,” Brown said. “In other words, the United States has limited resources and must concentrate them where the strategic stakes are highest. »
He said the port is the “belated recognition” the Quad needs to be competitive in the region.
“The Quad is basically saying: We’re not going to let one country control the infrastructure through which strategic resources flow,” he said.
Edited by Charlie Dharapak.